Quotes by Women Authors

Part of the trouble is that I've never properly understood that some disasters accumulate, that they don't all land like a child out of an apple tree.

Husbands and wives quarrel a lot more than anyone thinks, and it's oftener about little things than big ones.

Patricia Wentworth

Cam's wings were so bright they were almost blinding as they pulsed. "Holy Hell," Callie whispered, blinking."More or less," Arriane said

Our windy, untidy loft
where old people had flung up old junk
they'd thought might come in handy
ploughs, ladles, bears, lions, a clatter of heroes.

I myself love getting cookbooks and novels that some congenial person has already tried and liked.

Cheryl Mendelson

Dignity is like morality, Mirabilis barked. Too much is as bad as too little.

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.

We're all going to die sometime, so you might as well die pushing the odds for something that matters.

The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black firtrees are flakes
of white ash in the world's hearth.

Denise Levertov

The soul is a millstone, an albatross, it meddles in everything. It creates ties to torture us.

Marie Vieux Chauvet

To die for one's great ideas is glorious — and easy. The horror is to outlive them. That is our worst capability.

John Oliver Hobbes

If we cannot envision the world we would like to live in, we cannot work towards its creation. If we cannot place ourselves in it in our imagination, we will not believe it is possible.

Chellis Glendinning

Streets like the one she lived on were no accident. They were the North's lynch mobs, she thought bitterly; the method the big cities used to keep Negroes in their place.

But one day, the things that make you free start to keep you down.

Jardine Libaire

Love without friendship is like a kite, aloft only when the winds are favorable. Friendship is what gives love its wings.

Children live in a way that is very generous. They learn from a young age what you value; they watch your every move. If you value writing, they will learn quickly to value it too, as something they can give to someone, or receive with pleasure from someone else.

Last night I had rinsed out my sari strip and briefs in the sea. I walked down naked to where they hung in the branches of the silvery leafed tree beside the creek. Underneath the lazy sensuality of a luxurious stretch from toes to nose I felt the strong unequivocal demand of my blood. I hugged myself for a moment watching the grey light yield to dawn through half-closed eyes.

Consequences don't just go away. They aren't suddenly dissolved just because forgiveness has been desired or given.

Tracie Peterson

Not only is your story worth telling, but it can be told in words so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song.

O power of Love, O wondrous mystery!
How is my dark illumined by thy light,
That maketh morning of my gloomy night,
Setting my soul from Sorrow's bondage free
With swift-sent revelation! Yea, I see
Beyond the limitation of my sight
And senses, comprehending now, aright,
Today's proportion to eternity.
Through thee, my faith in God is made me sure,
My searching eyes have pierced the misty veil;
The pain and anguish which stern Sorrow brings
Through thee become more easy to endure.
Love-strong I mount, and heaven's high summit scale;
Through thee, my soul has spread her folded wings.

We are part animal, part human, and part divine, and the moment we forget the possibility of any one of those, we are lost.

Much contemporary verse reads like failed short-short stories rather than failed poetry.

Aye, you're neither one thing nor yet quite t'other. Pity, but there 'tis.

Eloise Jarvis McGraw

It's funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you always think, 'I want to go home.' But then you come home, and of course it's not the same. You can't live with it, you can't live away from it. And it seems like from then on there's always this yearning for some place that doesn't exist. I felt that. Still do. I'm never completely at home anywhere.

"You know, Mouse," [Tabby] said, "a brilliant cat like me should have smart friends; people who can count to more than four." "I can count to more than four," answered Mouse, very offended. "And I can do hard sums, and I know geography and history, and I can knit and..."